Mountain of Bliss Steve's email included a Swiss banknote showing Giacometti's Walking Man since he knew about my Lambda poems. If 100 symbolizes perfection, the Swiss got it right on their banknote, as the Platonic Lambda or Soul is perfect. Searching through Google for a larger image of this banknote, I find none at Swiss National Bank or Banknotes.com but browsing through China's currency, I find a 1914 One Dollar banknote showing an eagle on top of a globe. On the reverse amidst floral borders is a window to another world— and suddenly my mind is whisked away in reverie— gone, gone, gone on that sampan boat in calm waters sailing for the shoreline where I meet the poets Wang Wei and Su Tung-po in their huts. We walk to the pagoda for some pine nuts and ginseng tea before climbing the hillside path up the trails that Li Po and Tu Fu embarked many blue moons ago. A fresh breeze blows softly across the river, music from a bamboo flute drifts from far distant hills while clouds glowing with edges of gold uplift us to a hilltop shrine where a Taoist sage treats us with a peach. Am I now with the Immortals riding on dragons of wind in the Mountain of Bliss? — Peter Y. Chou     Mountain View, 4-18-2012

China One Dollar Banknote (1914) Reverse: Sailing ship with huts by shoreline